


i love you like a table

by poisedwalrus



Series: not only plan but also believe [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Croissants, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hugs, Mood Whiplash, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Underage Drinking, and pepper holds everything up strong and stable, but tony's definitely the one who writes 29 new drafts of vows that don't rhyme, depending on your definition of acting as a parental figure, deus ex peter tingle, i guess, it's waitress and tony is dawn and pepper is ogie, maybe it's, maybe it's maybelline, of champagne because celebrations, pepper: ..., peter is the most high-strung amateur wedding planner in the history of ever, sometimes the times when you want to be happy are the easiest times to be sad, tony: i'm wood and you are glue cover me with stuff, waitress is not actually mentioned in this fic sorry, well they switch probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-27 23:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20054302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisedwalrus/pseuds/poisedwalrus
Summary: “Okay, fine. It’s because after March I won’t be able to get the kitchen cold enough laminate the croissant dough properly. I need to be able to open the kitchen windows and get the kitchen really cold or else I won’t be able to get the chocolate croissants to have enough layers, and then they’ll just be dense, disgusting dough rolls with a little chocolate in the middle. They won’t be flaky at all! Is that what you want at your wedding, Mr. Stark?! Non-flaky chocolate dough rolls?!”Peter’s gonna make this wedding happen if it’s the last thing he does.(Set between “try to stop the paradise we’re dreaming of” and “hungry for a poke”)





	1. my heart is set in motion

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I've never planned a wedding. I've never been to a wedding. I've never seen a wedding. I suspect that weddings are myths.
> 
> Also, out of all the fics in this series, I'm least satisfied with this one. I really wanted to write it, but it did not want to be written. I also wanted it to be funny, and it did not want to be funny. So. Hope you read anyway.

Peter has his first real conversation with Pepper Potts on New Year’s Eve.

They’ve chatted before in passing, when Miss Potts has stopped by during Stark Internship Sundays. And she’s joined a couple of Saturday Movie Nights. Peter now knows that the CEO of Stark Industries has an embarrassing weakness for Hallmark movies. 

But, Peter has only ever spoken to Miss Potts with Mr. Stark there, which means that Mr. Stark has done most of the speaking in all the conversations they’ve ever had. They’ve never actually  _ talked _ .

That changes when Mr. Stark invites Peter and Aunt May to a New Year’s Eve party at his secret upstate lake house. 

It’s a small get-together by Mr. Stark’s standards. Happy drives Peter and Aunt May, and by the time they enter the cabin, Colonel Rhodes and Mr. Stark are already reenacting a beer pong tournament from their MIT days while Black Widow referees. Mr. Wilson is standing in the corner, talking to a guy with an eyepatch and a lady with a ponytail. None of them look really happy to be there, but they don’t seem tense either, so Peter doesn’t worry about it too much. A guy with maroon skin and a yellow jewel in the middle of his forehead is cuddling with a lady in a cool leather jacket on the sofa. Peter doesn’t see Captain America or Mr. Bucky, and he doesn’t know if they weren’t invited or if they just didn’t come. He wonders which is worse.

As Peter takes off his boots, Miss Potts comes over to take the platters of catering Happy brought. She also presses a flute of champagne into May’s hands and a glass of apple juice into Peter’s.

“Aw,” he says, glancing at the champagne.

May taps him on the nose. “No,” she says.

Miss Potts smiles, and Peter goes to help her carry the food trays into the kitchen. He balances them all on one arm, so he doesn’t spill his juice.

Mr. Stark’s lake house is very cozy, all wooden floors and rustic-looking paintings. There are lights hung everywhere, and the glow reflects off of the silver tinsel left here and there all over the family room. Everything looks warm.

The party is loud and noisy. After Peter finishes helping Miss Potts, Mr. Stark calls him over so that he can learn beer pong, except he doesn’t actually get to drink the beer. Peter may not be a Mr. Stark-level genius, but he does spend several hours every day swinging around New York City on manufactured faux spider-webbing. Physics is his bitch. After a couple of misses, Peter lands ten cups straight and makes Colonel Rhodes down twenty-four ounces of gross ping pong ball beer. Then Peter challenges Mr. Stark. Then Mr. Stark challenges the room in general for Peter.

Soon, half of the party guests are very drunk.

After draining his apple juice, Peter manages to con his way into a little champagne by saying that he was gonna have to test his ability to metabolize alcohol eventually, and would May and Mr. Stark prefer him to experiment at a crazy frat party or under the supervision of a cabin full of literal superheroes?

That’s what Peter thought.

Anyway, Peter’s drinking on an empty stomach so that he can minimize the amount of variables in his alcohol experiment. It’s a gamble, and Peter’s betting on the probability that he’s a happy drunk who won’t ruin the party once he gets hammered. He forgets to take into consideration how bad his luck is, though.

So, Peter‘s on his fifteenth glass of champagne and has excused himself to visit the bathroom thrice when the music and talking and laughing start blurring into one long, loud screech. It’s like the entire world is screaming in pain right next to his eardrums. He wants it to go away.

He pours himself another drink. 

The smell of roast pork begins reminding him of an apartment fire that Spider-Man didn’t show up to until it was too late. 

He pours himself another drink. 

The cheerful yellow fairy lights draped around the lake house suddenly make the walls look like they’re covered in flames.

Peter makes sure everyone’s either distracted or drunk, and then he goes outside and stands on the porch. He brushes some snow off the beam and places his glass of champagne on the wood. Then he braces his hands on the beam, too, and leans forward, away from the cabin. He closes his eyes.

It smells like ice, and it’s dark. Quiet.

Peter’s never spent New Year’s in a place so quiet. He’s never spent New Year’s with May and without Ben, either.

He knows that he should be inside, with May. But, she’d looked so happy, laughing at Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes with Black Widow sitting beside her. Peter doesn’t want to infect her with his sadness. He doesn’t want anyone to feel sad because of him.

Peter opens his eyes, picks up his champagne. He drinks.

Someone turns the porch light on, and he flinches. The door opens and shuts. A soft voice says, “Are you okay?”

He turns his head. It’s Miss Potts, holding his coat.

Peter smiles, but Miss Potts doesn’t smile back, so maybe he’s doing it wrong. “I’m good,” he says. “Just— enjoying nature.” Peter toasts the frozen lake with his glass. 

Miss Potts walks over to lean against the porch with him. The light makes her earrings sparkle with the snow. She hands him his coat, and he takes it, rolling the whole thing into a huge Chinese finger trap around his wrists.

Miss Potts asks, “How do you like the champagne?”

Peter wrinkles his nose. “It’s bitter,” he says. “But there are bubbles. Bubbles in my belly.” He rubs his stomach.

“Okay,” Miss Potts says. “Let me know if you start feeling bad, and I’ll go grab you some food or prepare a bedroom if you— ”

“Will you fix me?” Peter asks. He wants to go inside, but he doesn’t want to ruin Mr. Stark’s party. “If I feel bad, will you fix me? Mr. Wilson’s been trying to fix me for, like, two months, but it hasn’t really worked yet. I bet you could do it, though, Miss Potts,” he adds. “You’re really awesome.”

Miss Potts looks at him.

She says, “Peter, you don’t need to be fixed. But, please tell me if you feel bad. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

“Oh,” Peter says. “That’s a nice thing to say. Thanks. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, too.”

“Thank you.” Miss Potts says. She untangles his coat from around his arms and then zips him into it. It’s warm.

They sip their champagne and stand in silence. 

Inside the cabin, someone bursts into raucous laughter. Somewhere across the lake, an owl hoots. Miss Potts is quiet.

Peter is not good at being quiet. He is an overflowing bucket of word vomit. So, he breaks the silence with “Have you and Mr. Stark picked a date for the wedding yet?”

“Not yet,” Miss Potts says. “The engagement was a little spur-of-the-moment, so we haven’t been able to plan much.”

“Have you guys been looking at venues? Caterers? Dresses? Photographers?”

“No, we’re taking it slow. I’ve been busy with Stark Industries, and Tony— well, Tony either doesn’t think about these things until the last minute, or he plans them meticulously from the start but doesn’t tell anyone until it’s almost too late.”

“Yeah,” Peter nods. “That sounds right. Did you know that Mr. Stark once called my school and excused me from sixth period because he’d booked out this really popular new froyo place and wanted me to try it? I just thought he needed a taste tester— He didn’t tell me it was a congratulations for winning AcaDec regionals until I was on my fourth cup.”

Miss Potts says, “...I did not know that. But, you do seem to bring out that side of him.” She smiles and adds, “That reminds me— I wanted to thank you for this.” Miss Potts flashes Peter her engagement ring.

Peter blinks.

“Hm?”

“You don’t remember?” Miss Potts says. “That press conference where Tony proposed to me in front of all those reporters? He originally called that for you.”

“Huh?” Peter says blankly. He thinks for twelve seconds and then asks, “Why would Mr. Stark try to get me to marry him?”

Miss Potts pauses, then laughs so hard she almost spills her champagne. Then she confiscates Peter’s glass.

“Peter, sweetie,” she says. “I meant that Tony was going to introduce you as an Avenger at that press conference. Do you remember now? You turned him down.”

“Oh,” Peter says. “Oh, shit, that was real? I thought it was a test.”

“It was a real offer. And you made the mature decision, Peter. We were both very proud of you.”

“Uh— wow, I’m— gonna have a very dramatic reaction to this later. In front of Mr. Stark. He’s really gonna hear it from me.”

“It won’t be anything he doesn’t deserve, I’m sure.”

“But, wait— Miss Potts, does that mean you guys just got engaged for the press? ‘Cause my friend is really against spontaneous public proposals; she says they pressure women into marriages they don’t actually want. Did you— Are you okay? Do you want me to— I don’t know— talk to Mr. Stark or something? Because I’m sure he’d get it if you— “

“Slow down, sweetie,” Miss Potts says. “It’s alright. We’d discussed marriage before, and I was ready and willing when Tony proposed. If it’d been ten years ago— well. But, Tony’s really been maturing lately, and a good part of that is because of you, too.”

“Me again?” Peter blinks. “Wow.” 

“Yup. Tony is now much more understanding about how stressed I get when he goes running off in that Iron Man suit. You’ve finally shown him what it’s like to be on the other side of the leash.”

“Hey, I’ve only almost died, like, two times since Mr. Stark’s known me— Wait, three times. No, wait— actually four.”

“Oh, God,” Miss Potts says. “Please tell me that Tony’s been working on some armor for you between all the movie nights and carbonara dinners you have.”

“He has! My suit’s really great— I was fighting two ninjas in Manhattan, and one of them tried to skewer me with these needles, but they deflected right off the fabric! And it’s machine washable! It’s awesome— Don’t worry about it, Miss Potts.”

“It’s my job to worry,” Miss Potts says. “I’ve been worrying about Tony for more than a decade. And since you’ve practically adopted Tony into your family, it’s my job to worry about you, too.”

Miss Potts puts her champagne down and looks Peter in the eye.

She says, “I know you haven’t known Tony long, but you really have become a huge part of his life. He cares a lot about you. I do, too. And I hope that in the future you’ll become a bigger part of my life as well. I’d be honored to call you part of my family.”

Wow. Peter’s face feels really warm.

He smiles until his cheeks hurt. Miss Potts smiles back.

Then Peter says, “That means you’re planning on inviting me to the wedding, right? Because Mr. Stark already promised me I could be the flower girl.”

“Whenever it happens, you will definitely be invited, Peter,” Miss Potts says. “And you can be the flower girl if you want.”

——

Peter’s gonna make this wedding happen if it’s the last thing he does.

And it may actually be the last thing he does if Miss Potts finds out he had Ned hack her calendar and insert a virus that makes it impossible for anyone to schedule anything during the last two weeks of March. And if she finds out Peter snuck a look at those Pinterest boards she’s been working on while they watch sci-fi movies on movie night. She‘s pinned a surprising amount of wedding stuff in Iron Man colors.

So, yeah, Peter’s dead, but it’s fine. Everyone has to die of something.

After New Year’s, Peter spends the remaining two days of winter break studying everything about wedding planning. He has Karen help him research as he’s out shoveling snowy sidewalks as Spider-Man. The streets are kind of icy, so Spider-Man has been out a lot these days, catching cars that are in danger of slipping off the road or into each other. Peter’s lucky that he can multitask.

Anyway, it’s the Stark Internship Sunday after his wedding planning binge, and Peter is cleaning out his web shooters while Mr. Stark does new and interesting things with an arc reactor. He seems to be going for something more triangle-y this time. Peter asks him if it’s because he’s not confident that he can pull off circles in his old age. That gets Peter a nanoengineering lecture, which is liberally peppered with jabs at Peter’s first Spider-Man suit.

And Peter does find Mr. Stark’s nanoengineering concerns fascinating, but he also wants to know— “Mr. Stark, what would your ideal wedding be like?”

Mr. Stark stops halfway through a comment about the aesthetic qualities of nanobot armor vs. footie pajamas and stares at Peter for three seconds. Then he says, “What?”

“Like, if you didn’t have to worry about money or time or anything,” Peter says.

“Kid, I don’t have to worry about money. And I was commenting on your three-blunt-worthy non-sequitur— Don’t tell your aunt I said that,” Mr. Stark turns back to the reactor. “Anyway, are we role-playing second grade girls at recess right now? Is that your new bonding activity of the month?”

“No,” Peter says, “and don’t think I missed you avoiding the question. Or getting weirdly defensive.”

“Hey, this is an average amount of defensiveness for me.”

Peter gives Mr. Stark a look.

“Fine,” Mr. Stark sighs. “If this was twenty years— Heck, maybe even ten— then I’d probably say a big blowout party on a cruise ship in the middle of the Pacific. Lots of cameras, lots of people. Gold foil in all the food and a literal pool of alcohol. Bring out all the big guns, you know. It’d last for a week, and my actual marriage would probably last for three days. But now,” he shrugs. “Pepper and I have talked about just sending in the paperwork and going on with our lives.”

Peter nods. “Marriage is a social construct anyway,” he says, but he’s secretly disappointed. Should he cancel on the wedding planner he’d emailed to ask if he could shadow her for a week as part of a career counseling school assignment?

Mr. Stark glances at Peter’s face and puts his work down. He sighs, rubs a hand through his hair, and then says, “But, I had this dream a couple days ago about our wedding. It was— pretty amazing actually.”

Oh? Peter waits, but no details appear to be forthcoming. 

“Well?” he says. “Who was there? Where was it? What music was playing? What color were the flowers? How many— “

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. I didn’t dream up an entire wedding in one night.”

“You become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics in one night!”

“Wha— Who told you that? Has Captain America been telling tall tales again? That’s it; no more story time with Grandpa Steve for you, young whippersnapper.”

Peter crosses his arms. Mr. Stark crosses his arms back.

They’re deadlocked for thirty-eight seconds.

Finally, Mr. Stark lets out a long breath and looks at the ceiling. “It happened at the lake house,” he says. “A small ceremony, just close friends and family— That means you and your unnaturally attractive aunt were there, too. You look funny in a suit, by the way. Don’t deny it— May showed me your Homecoming photos. Anyway, my dream wedding.” Mr. Stark pauses. He says, more quietly than before, “It was outside, by the lake. Nothing fancy, no— rose petals or doves or anything. Just a sunny day at the cabin. Rhodey walked Pepper from the house to the end of the dock. She looked— like an angel. No, better. Just— she was glowing. And she came and stood next to me on the dock, facing the lake. And then we exchanged rings and kissed, and Happy married us right there, next to the water.”

“Oh,” Peter says quietly. “That’s so beautiful.” Then he thinks it over and— “Wait, Happy?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark says. “He’s an ordained minister.”

“What?”

“Yes, he is a little overqualified for being your babysitter, isn’t he?”

“Wow, I’m so gonna ask him about this later. This is a conversation that’s definitely gonna happen.”

“Well, don’t tell him I told you. I don’t need to spend another hour hearing about how you’re annoying him into an early retirement.”

“Aw, Happy’s just saying that. He loves me.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Pete.”

They go back to working in silence. 

Peter’s scrubbing out one of his web-fluid storage tubes when Mr. Stark asks, “So, what’s with this sudden interest in weddings? Preparing for a back-up career if the whole vigilante thing doesn’t work out?”

“You got me,” Peter says. “And since you’re the only engaged people I know, I’m doing my first wedding-planning experiment on you and Miss Potts.”

“I’m honored,” Mr. Stark says. His tone suggests sarcasm. “Make sure to get us one of those big binders with all those magazine cutouts and color swatches in it. I think it’s mandatory for every wedding planner to have one.” 

“I’m gonna come back with the biggest binder you’ve ever seen. Prepare yourself, Mr. Stark.”

——

While May’s at work, Peter goes into her bedroom and searches her bookshelf. It’s tall, decorated with little crystal figurines and snow globes from different counties all around the state. Peter traces his finger over the binder filled with his third grade schoolwork, the folder with all of their birth certificates and social security cards, a colorful collection of parenting manuals with laminated covers and black plastic bindings. There’s a framed photo lying facedown on the wood. Peter doesn’t touch it.

He goes onto his hands and knees and studies the photo albums on the bottom shelf. One of them has a white sticker on the spine, labeled “M&R 98-00” in tall, slanting handwriting. He wiggles it out of the lineup. 

Peter sits on the floor, pulls the album into his lap, and carefully flips it open.

His parents smile up at him from behind the plastic sleeves. They’re beautiful.

His mom is wearing a veil and a lacy white dress. His dad is in a black suit with a grey bow tie. Peter slowly presses his index finger to the image of their clasped hands, making sure not to block his view of the wedding rings that he’ll never inherit.

When Peter was a kid, he’d look at this photo and try to imagine what his parents’ wedding was like. How did his mom’s dress move as she walked down the aisle? Did his dad smile like that when he saw her for the first time? Did their hands tremble as they slipped the rings onto each others’ fingers? Did they say they loved each other to the moon and back? Did they cry? Did they kiss?

Peter’s parents, before Peter. 

He had tried so hard to imagine them as he’d never known them, so he didn’t have to think about how he was forgetting them as he had known them.

Eventually, after Peter made all his internal questions external questions, Aunt May told him that his parents never had a wedding ceremony. They loved each other very much, but they were in grad school. They were busy. And poor. 

When they decided they were ready, they sent in the paperwork. And that was that.

It was only years later, when they stumbled across a small photography studio while looking for apartments in Queens, did they have enough time for a little impromptu photoshoot.

Their supposed wedding photos are full of lies. His mom was wearing a prop dress. His dad was standing on a footstool. But, Peter has always believed that their smiles were real.

Peter doesn’t remember a lot about his parents. Even while they were still here, he spent a lot of time with Aunt May and Uncle Ben. His parents were always busy, always planning for the next thing in their lives. In his life. They started a college tuition fund for him before he was even born. His mom kept a baby diary filled with notes about anticipated milestones and possible preschools. He still flips through it from time to time, so he won’t forget what her handwriting looks like. Apparently, his dad had been looking into symptoms and treatments for childhood asthma, the week before they died. 

Peter doesn’t remember a lot about his parents, but he knows they loved him. They just never had enough time.

They didn’t have enough time.


	2. i'm scared of breaking open

Peter slams a four-inch binder onto the table. The table shudders, and Miss Potts has to quickly grab the edge to keep it from tipping. 

“Sorry,” Peter says, “I’m just— really excited.”

“Yeah, well, hold back some of that spider-enhanced enthusiasm,” says Mr. Stark. “The table hasn’t done anything to you.”

“You’re a billionaire,” Peter points out. “You can afford a million more tables.”

“I’m glad you think I’d be happy to spend my entire fortune on tables that have fallen victim to super-powered teen— “

“Boys,” says Miss Potts. Both Peter and Mr. Stark follow the unvoiced command to shut the fuck up.

“Peter,” she continues. “What did you want to show Tony and me?”

After Saturday dinner, Peter has called a meeting in lieu of playing Mr. Stark in superhero dodgeball for movie-choosing rights. He’s managed to get Miss Potts to come, too, by showing up at her office and letting all his pent-up anxiety show on his face. He feels pretty bad because she’d looked really busy, so he tries to get to the point.

Peter pushes the binder over and says, “I’m planning your wedding. Here’s everything I’ve got so far.”

Mr. Stark makes a face and says, “I’ve got to stop assuming you’re joking every time you say stuff like that. You’re never joking.”

“I’d never joke about my plans,” Peter confirms. He only lies about them for the greater good.

Miss Potts is flipping through the binder.

“This is… incredibly thorough,” she says. “Where— I’ve had my eye on these flower arrangements for months. How did you know I liked these?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“And the menu— “

“Well, I know you guys don’t want to make this a huge media thing, so I figured we’d keep everything in the family— so to speak. Happy can bring catering from the city like he did on New Year’s and— and I thought I could do the cake and all the desserts. It wouldn’t be, like, super impressive or anything, but I’ve been doing a lot of research on wedding cakes, and I think I could get up to three tiers— but, uh, I’ve listed other cake-makers here if you guys wanted something more professional— “

“Kid, you once instigated an entire political movement using cookies,” Mr. Stark says. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else with our cake.”

“Oh, it wasn’t— But, thanks.” Peter smiles.

“Anyway, my question is about this.” Mr. Stark flips to the first page of the binder. He taps on the heavily-annotated calendar and raises an eyebrow at Peter. “I know I was joking about you quitting everything to become a wedding planner, but now I’m thinking that maybe you weren’t. What, you not gonna sleep for the next two months?”

Peter shrugs. If he had to choose between planning the wedding so that Mr. Stark and Miss Potts get hitched as soon as possible and sleeping so that he doesn’t look like he’s been perpetually punched in the eyes, he’d choose planning every time. Mr. Stark probably doesn’t want to hear that answer, though.

So, he says, “I just think March is the best time for a wedding.”

“At the lake house?” Mr. Stark raises both eyebrows. “You’ve been messing around in my lab for months— Don’t tell you’ve forgotten the specific heat of water now.”

“Late March,” Peter amends. “You know with all the— the global warming, it’ll definitely be warm enough in late March.”

“Well, I’ll make sure to send thank you notes to the coal companies then. But still— why March? Why’re you so set on March, Pete?”

“Uh, because— because with your relationship with Miss Potts, you came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. It’s uh— uh, a metaphor.”

Miss Potts hides a laugh behind her hand. Mr. Stark looks at her, offended, then turns back to Peter and gives him a look.

Peter holds out for four seconds.

“Okay, fine. It’s because after March I won’t be able to get the kitchen cold enough laminate the croissant dough properly. I need to be able to open the kitchen windows and get the kitchen really cold or else I won’t be able to get the chocolate croissants to have enough layers, and then they’ll just be dense, disgusting dough rolls with a little chocolate in the middle. They won’t be flaky at all! Is that what you want at your wedding, Mr. Stark?! Non-flaky chocolate dough rolls?!”

Mr. Stark blinks. He and Miss Potts exchange a look.

“Whoa, Pete, slow your roll,” Mr. Stark says. “It’s okay. I didn’t realize you were so passionate about your...flakes. Uh, if you really need it to be that cold, how about we hold the wedding next winter?”

“You can’t! Next winter I’ll be doing the SAT and ACT and I gotta take the SAT subject tests, too— You know MIT wants two, and they have to be 800s. With all the studying and Spider-Manning, I won’t have time to go to the wedding at all! Please, Mr. Stark, Miss Potts, it’s gotta be this March.”

Mr. Stark opens his mouth, but Miss Potts squeezes his wrist.

She says, “Peter, I know you’re very excited about our wedding, but two months isn’t enough time to plan everything.”

“We don’t have to plan everything in two months,” Peter says. “You and Mr. Stark have already planned ninety-nine percent of a wedding. This—“ He pats the binder “— is just a condensed version of all your plans plus the one percent you guys haven’t decided on yet. Really, I would just be— putting your plans into motion.”

Miss Potts doesn’t look very convinced, but Mr. Stark snorts.

“Well, he’s got us there,” Mr. Stark says. He flips the binder to a spread of wedding dresses and suits and points to the first gown. “I’ve already gotten this Valentino dress tailored to your size— I’ll schedule a fitting later. And I think this suit— “ He points to a grey Etro tuxedo “— would go great with it. Which is convenient, since I’ve already bought it.”

“Wha— “ Miss Potts turns to him and says, “Are you having FRIDAY monitor my browsing history again?”

Mr. Stark raises his hands and says, “Nope, just some good old-fashioned espionage. By the way, I don’t mind— and I’m sure Pete doesn’t either— if you want to watch Hallmark movies instead of  _ Blade Runner _ . Just say the word, and you’ll no longer have to spend our bonding time on Pinterest. Though I am flattered by how many wedding accoutrements you’ve pinned in Iron Man colors.” He winks.

Miss Potts’s face looks a bit red.

She turns back to Peter and says, “Still, carrying out these plans will take a lot of time. And with Stark Industries and whatever Tony is working on these days, I don’t know if— “

“It’s okay, Miss Potts. You two just need to make choices, and I’ll take care of everything else. It’s a small wedding, so it’s not like a ton of decisions need to be made anyway. Really, I won’t waste your time at all.”

Miss Potts doesn’t say anything.

“I’m great at executing plans,” Peter adds. “I got Mr. Stark to stop skipping dinner on Saturday after only three weeks of plan execution. A wedding is definitely just a two month deal.”

“Wait, what plan— “

“I don’t doubt your skills,” Miss Potts says. “But, I’m worried about this putting too much stress on you.”

Peter leans forward and looks Miss Potts in the eye. “Miss Potts,” he says, “I’m a sophomore at a STEM-focused magnet school. I’m taking three AP classes right now, and after I finish my homework, I spend a quarter of my day swinging around New York and fighting crime. I’m always stressed. So, planning your wedding— That’s not stress for me. I want to see you guys get married— I want to see you looking really happy at your wedding— and planning the wedding is a way for me to do that. That’s, like, anti-stress. So, you don’t have to worry about me.” Peter sits back. “Just— tell me if you actually want this. If you don’t want a wedding, or if you, uh, want an actual professional wedding planner, I’ll back off, I swear.”

Miss Potts looks at Mr. Stark. He looks back, then stares down at the binder. He seems like he’s considering something. 

Finally, he says, “Well, I hope you left room on your resume for ‘amateur wedding planner’— ”

“Yes!” Peter fist pumps. 

“— But you have to remember to ask for help, if you need it. I’m serious, Pete. If this is too much for you— if it looks like this wedding plan is taking over your life, I’m telling Aunt May, and we’re stripping you of your wedding planning rights. No teenage vigilantes will fall to the evils of wedding planning.”

“Oh, May wouldn’t help you. She wants to see you guys get married, too. She’d definitely be on my side.”

“You wanna bet?”

“Okay, boys,” Miss Potts interjects. “Peter,” she continues, “I’m very grateful that you’re willing to help us plan our wedding. This is a huge burden off my shoulders, and I can tell that you’ll be very good at this. Just— remember that you can always ask for help. You don’t have to do everything alone.”

“I know that,” Peter says. “And I will definitely ask people for help when I need it. But, I’ve done the research— Wedding planning’s a one-man band. So, if I don’t have to bother anyone, I won’t.”

“Do not take that as a personal challenge,” Mr. Stark says.

“I’m taking it as a personal challenge.”

“Pete— “

“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Stark, Miss Potts. I can do it, I swear. I won’t let you down.”

And Peter really means it. He’s confident, despite the glances he can see Mr. Stark and Miss Potts exchanging. After a one and a half years of high school, a year of Spider-Manning, and half a year of aggressive friend-making, Peter has made an art form out of finding enough time for the people he loves. He just wishes that he hadn’t had to sacrifice so much for it.

Mr. Stark and Miss Potts are looking at him now. Peter quickly shakes his head and then flips to the front of the binder.

“So,” he says. “First, let’s talk colors.”

——

Peter commissions MJ to design him a wedding invitation template. She gives him a ten percent discount because he’s her friend and then charges him a fifteen percent tax because Mr. Stark’s a billionaire who gave Peter a checking account but not a budget. 

Peter doesn’t argue. He doesn’t have a good argument anyway.

The invites look great, all white with clean gold accents and a sleek, fancy font. Peter writes one invitation, telling himself that he’s just testing the design out. But, that doesn’t stop him from printing and taking a picture of the first Potts-Stark wedding invite, which is conveniently addressed to one Peter Parker. He tilts the card back and forth, watching the gold ink flash in the light, and decides that he’s gonna frame it.

Of course, he prepares all the rest of the invitations first. Peter has FRIDAY help him look up last-known addresses as he goes down Miss Potts’ and Mr. Stark’s guest lists. The ones addressed outside of the city will be delivered by express mail, and the others will be sent by the Spider-Man messenger service. Peter is a professional, after all; he only uses the best.

And because Peter is a professional, he notices some weird things about the guest lists. For example, Miss Potts has listed a couple of her close friends but nobody who seems to be a blood relative. Peter shrugs this off. He’s pretty experienced with having a small blood family, and he’s not gonna ask Miss Potts about something that’s probably a sensitive topic. Besides, blood isn’t everything, and Peter’s halfway through adopting Miss Potts into his family anyway. She knows it, too; she has him listed on her guest list.

It’s Mr. Stark’s guest list that Peter’s more concerned about. It’s longer than he thought it’d be, though that’s not the problem. Peter and Aunt May are on it, and so is Colonel Rhodes and Happy and all of the Avengers whom Peter has befriended and even those he hasn’t. There are some people listed whom Peter doesn’t know at all. But, there’s one name missing. 

And Peter doesn’t know if Mr. Stark did it on purpose or not, so he has to go check. Actually, he would go talk to Mr. Stark even if he knew it was on purpose. 

Peter takes a break from wedding planning to add some reagents to Web Fluid 3.17, which is refluxing in the lab. Conveniently, the lab is also where Mr. Stark is. He grunts in acknowledgement once Peter comes in and says, “Hey.” It looks like he’s trying to get his nanobots to self-assemble based on touch input to the arc reactor. Peter sneaks glances at Mr. Stark’s calculations while he measures out his reagents, and they look totally awesome. He would definitely ask a bunch of questions about the mechanics, if he didn’t have a very different question on his mind.

After beginning to add the reagents dropwise to his round bottom flask, Peter decides that this is a good moment to start questioning Mr. Stark about his guest list without making him feel attacked. He’s usually more comfortable during science time.

Peter starts with “Mr. Stark, I was looking at your guest list, and—“

Mr. Stark doesn’t even look up as he says, “No, I am not inviting any of your Defender friends. They’re not my biggest fans, and frankly, I’m afraid of the potential property damage. They could wipe out a billionaire’s fortune no problem.”

“Uh, I was actually gonna ask about—“

“You are not inviting Deadpool to my wedding. See, this is exactly why no one is getting plus ones— Don’t know what kinds of friends kids are making these days—“

“Mr. Stark, I’m asking about Mr. Bucky,” Peter interrupts. “I didn’t see his name on your guest list and— and, well, I thought that if he came, he could help take wedding photos or something. The metal arm is a natural light modifier, you know. So— did you plan on inviting him?”

Mr. Stark’s pen stops moving. Then he says lightly, “Well, I wasn’t planning on having the Terminator over, so I’m afraid you’ll have to find another photographer, kid.”

Peter’s heart sinks. “Are you guys fighting again?” he asks carefully.

“No.”

“...Are you guys still fighting?”

“Nope.”

“But, you don’t want Mr. Bucky at your wedding?”

“Got it in one— Really showing off that genius kid education there, Pete.”

“Then— Then I don’t get it. Why don’t you want to invite Mr. Bucky?”

“Why would I want to invite him?”

Peter is offended on Mr. Bucky’s behalf.

“Because he’s cool, and he’s really nice, and— and I thought you guys made up after I finished my  _ Hairspray _ plan.”

Mr. Stark sighs.

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to restore something back to one-hundred percent once it’s been broken.” Mr. Stark glances away and adds, “And it’s impossible to restore something that was never there in the first place.”

“But—“

“Kid,” Mr. Stark says. “I know you and Barnes are— vigilante buddies or something now, but I’m not inviting him to my wedding. Ah, ah— no more questions. This topic is closed.” Mr. Stark goes back to fiddling with the arc reactor to demonstrate how closed this topic is.

And, well, Peter would normally acquiesce and revisit the conversation later, maybe when Mr. Stark is feeling less prickly or defensive or vulnerable. Peter’s usually patient enough to wait out other people’s emotional turmoil before sticking his nose into their business. But, Peter is running out of time. He needs to get the invites out ASAP and move on to arranging catering and flowers and furniture for the reception he doesn’t actually know where he’s holding yet. So, he‘s more impatient than usual, and he lets that frustration out while talking to Mr. Stark. 

It’s a mistake.

“Are you still being salty over the Accords fight?” Peter says sharply. “It’s been months; I thought you were over it already. Why are you being so— so petty to family?”

Mr. Stark’s hands jerk. He’s silent for eight seconds.

Then he says very, very casually, “Well, Pete, maybe I just don’t want my parents’ murderer to be there on my wedding day.”

Peter freezes.

“…What?” he croaks out.

Mr. Stark keeps scribbling on his notes. 

Peter slowly sets down his pipettes, feeling as though he’s walked into  _ Coraline _ ’s Other World. He leans against the counter and scrambles to organize what he knows about Mr. Stark’s parents. He doesn’t remember reading anything on Wikipedia about murder.

“I thought— There was a car crash—“

“Courtesy of the Winter Soldier,” Mr. Stark says shortly. “And when that didn’t take, he went ahead and personally finished the job.”

“How do you—“

“— Know? Well, there’s video footage. Delightful, really. I’ve always wanted to have my mom’s strangulation added to my diverse smorgasbord of nightmares.”

Peter lowers his head.

He whispers, “...I’m sorry.”

Mr. Stark looks up and the left corner of his mouth lifts wryly. “But?” he says, like it’s a challenge.

Peter opens his mouth, wanting to say “No buts,” but instead, the words that tumble out are “But, Mr. Bucky was a Hydra mind slave then. He’s not the Winter Soldier anymore.” 

Mr. Stark’s face goes tight.

“Peter, that doesn’t— I know that, okay?! I know! But,” Mr. Stark says, stepping towards Peter. “If I took the gun that shot your uncle and hung it on your bedroom wall, would you be okay with that? Would you be able to— play with Legos and hang out with your friends and joke with your aunt with the gun that shot the bullet that murdered your uncle right there every time you turned around? Huh? And would you want someone to show up with that gun at your wedding? The so-called happiest day of your life? How would you like that, Peter?”

Peter shrinks away. He can’t say a word.

“Right,” Mr. Stark says. 

Mr. Stark places his right hand over his eyes, then drags it down his face. He glances at Peter, opens his mouth, closes it, steps back, and finally returns to his nanobots. He looks tired.

Peter tries to take a deep breath and go back to his work, too. He can’t. The air is heavy, and it’s suffocating him.

He turns off his heating mantle with shaking hands and pulls off his safety goggles before they’re filled with the water he’s desperately trying to blink back into his tear ducts. That’s one batch of web fluid ruined, but he can’t even try to care about it right now.

Peter chokes out, “Sorry,” and then he rushes out of the lab.

——

During winter, Peter thinks a lot about death. 

It makes sense. All his dead people died in winter.

An upperclassman, whose locker is papered with Post-it notes reading “Why did you do it?” and “I miss you.” His middle school biology teacher, who wore a pink ribbon up until the last time he saw her. Cindy Moon’s dad, in the basement with the pills he stopped taking and a tie. All the people who Spider-Man was too late to save. His mom and dad, their empty coffins.

Uncle Ben, growing cold to match the ice he lies on.

Before the spider bite, Peter had wondered if he was cursed, if death would follow him wherever he went until it got him, too. Now, he doesn’t have to wonder anymore.

So, Peter’s always been living on borrowed time, but lately he’s really been feeling it. It’s been making his sleep worse, and it’s been making him worse. He snapped at MJ the other day, when she tried to lob quiz questions at him during lunch. He’s been shorter with Ned, too, constantly rejecting his requests to build Lego models or hang out or relax a little, since “Peter, you don’t look like you rode the train— You look like you got hit by it.” Just yesterday, Peter got mad at Aunt May for asking him to do the dishes while he was researching recipes before patrol. And now this, with Mr. Stark.

Before Christmas, Peter had felt like he’d been getting better. Now, his nightmares are filled with bullet holes, and he’s taking his stress out on the people around him. It’s fucked up. He’s fucked up.

Peter should probably apologize to Mr. Wilson. And Miss Potts. Maybe he can’t be fixed after all.

But, Miss Potts still comes to help him. It only takes her twenty-two minutes to find him sitting on the edge of the compound’s roof. He’s still wearing his nitrile gloves. That means he can’t turn to look at Miss Potts as she walks over, or else she’ll see the tears that he can’t wipe off his face without risking denaturation of the eyeball.

Miss Potts stops a couple feet behind him. She says, “I’ve got a very worried fiancé freaking out in the lab right now. He’s trying to figure out how to apologize— Brace yourself for a very extravagant and most likely useless present.”

“…I’m the one who needs to apologize to him,” Peter says. He still sounds a little unsteady, so he clears his throat. “I was being pushy. I provoked him.”

“Maybe so,” Miss Potts admits, “but he still shouldn’t have exploded at you like that. He’s the adult.”

“I could be the adult, too.”

“You shouldn’t need to. Tony shouldn’t need you to. I shouldn’t, either.”

“You guys didn’t ask me for anything,” Peter says dully. “I inserted myself into your business all on my own. I pushed you guys into this wedding, and I tried to push Mr. Stark into inviting someone who reminds him of bad things, and I— I don’t—“ Peter can’t even put his face in his hands right now, so he settles for pushing his chin into his chest and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Oh, sweetie,” Miss Potts says. But, she doesn’t move closer.

“I’m sorry,” Peter gasps out. “I’m so sorry. I don’t— I don’t know why I’m like this. I don’t wanna be like this—” 

“Peter, could you please come away from the edge of the roof?”

“Why?” Peter sniffles. “I won’t fall.”

“I know.” Miss Potts says gently. “But I’m a little scared of heights, and I want to give you a hug. Could you come to me, please?”

Peter takes a deep breath and holds for five seconds. 

Then he stands up, turns around, and walks three steps away from the edge of the roof. Miss Potts takes the other three steps forward.

She smells like Mr. Stark’s laundry detergent and a hint of fancy perfume. Peter clenches his hands into fists and bends his wrists outward, before carefully wrapping his arms around her back. 

He’s still wearing the nitrile gloves. He doesn’t want to get her dirty.

Peter’s shaking a little. He hadn’t realized how cold it was until Miss Potts’s hug started warming him up. She holds him a bit tighter, using a gloved hand to cover the back of his exposed neck.

“Okay,” she says. “Now, I want you to listen to me carefully.” 

Peter nods into her shoulder.

“First, you did not push me or Tony into this wedding. In fact, you’re doing us a huge favor by planning and arranging everything. We’re very grateful to you. Second—“ She hesitates.

“Tony knows that you were well-intentioned, when you brought up Sergeant Barnes,” Miss Potts continues. “You didn’t mean to touch an open wound, and he knows that. When you’ve lived a life like Tony’s, there aren’t a lot of topics that don’t involve wounds. At this point, he doesn’t mind the hurt as much as he appreciates the touch.”

Peter ruminates over that.

He thinks he gets it. He once saw a Tumblr post that said something along the same lines. But, he still wishes Mr. Stark didn’t have to hurt. He wishes he didn’t have so many wounds. 

However, there’s nothing Peter can do about it.

So, he replies, “Kinky.”

Miss Potts doesn’t laugh.

Instead, she says, “Tony was wrong to say what he said to you. Even if he was hurt. Do you understand that?”

Peter doesn’t really but— “Yeah.”

“You’re a good person, Peter. No one is allowed to take out their hurt on you, okay?”

Peter doesn’t really want to talk about this anymore, so he says, “Okay.”

He’s not sure if Miss Potts believes him, but she doesn’t push him either. She just pats him on the back.

After one more minute, she says, “Do you feel better?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you ready to go in now?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, and he lets her go. 

Miss Potts steps back and smiles at him. Peter’s getting very embarrassed about his breakdown now, but Miss Potts refuses to let him feel awkward about it as she ushers him towards the rooftop door. She says that she wants to stay out a bit longer and move around a little before going back to her paperwork, but she orders him to go inside and warm up before he catches his death. Peter doesn’t tell her that the spider took care of that. 

He walks into the building and immediately sees Mr. Stark, who’s leaning against the wall outside the stairs and staring at him. Peter jumps, then opens his mouth.

“I’m sor—“

“I don’t want to hear it,” Mr. Stark says, backing into the stairwell and closing the door behind him. The sound of his loafers hitting the stairs disappears as he makes a quick exit.

Peter feels his heart freeze to match his fingers and nose, until he notices what Mr. Stark left behind.

It’s a little robot made out of Mr. Stark’s prototypical, self-assembling nanobots. It’s shaped like a chubby cartoon spider, and it follows Peter around, occasionally beeping in a high-pitched tone, as he goes to the bathroom to throw away his gloves and wash his face. Peter eventually figures out that it’s saying “sorry” repeatedly in Morse Code. When he picks it up and hugs it, it deforms like a stuffed animal and starts vibrating gently, like a purring cat.

Peter takes the spider robot and grabs the wedding invitations, and then he goes to the lab. Mr. Stark is there, hammering at something that looks like a half-assembled prosthetic limb. He’s hitting it with a force that suggests emotional strain more than engineering. Peter sits on the stool beside him, placing the spider robot in his lap and spreading the invitations out on the counter. 

Mr. Stark stops banging at the prosthetic. He knows Peter doesn’t like loud sounds right next to his head. 

Peter slowly reaches out and removes the hammer from Mr. Stark’s grip. Then he asks, “Will you help me put the invitations into envelopes? Some of these need to be mailed, and I don’t know how stamps work.”

Mr. Stark still won’t look at him, but he does say, “You were born in 2001. I’m pretty sure people still used the US Postal Service when you were growing up.”

They did. Peter still says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never sent a letter in my life. Don’t stamps cost, like, thirty dollars or something?”

“Oh my God,” Mr. Stark says. “I can feel the grey hairs spontaneously generating.”

Peter grins. 

Then he makes Mr. Stark lick all the envelopes. 

The day ends with Mr. Stark sticking stamps on Peter’s forehead and cheeks, threatening to ship him to Caltech so that he can terrorize the West Coast instead. All the wedding invitations are ready to be sent, but Peter is way too busy laughing to worry about them. Even Mr. Stark can’t stop smiling.

They don’t talk about it.


	3. when i see you

As an apology to Mr. Stark and Miss Potts, Peter throws himself into their wedding planning with even more zeal than before. 

He personally delivers each NYC-bound invitation and follows every recipient around until they RSVP to his face or decide not to go. Captain America is in the latter faction. After Peter explains why he only has one invitation, the captain nods in understanding, but he still seems upset. Eventually, he tells Peter to give Mr. Stark his congratulations and pass on the message that he won’t be able to come. He promises that he and Mr. Bucky will send over a big wedding present. Not personally, though.

Peter marks this down on his to-do list as another problem he needs to address after he finishes up with the wedding. It’s a really long list.

Next, Peter hashes out the recipes for the desserts he’s gonna make. He bakes batch after batch of croissants and danishes and fiddly little butter cookies, pretty and intricate like the ones from  _ Alice in Wonderland _ . May says that she’ll become a balloon if he makes her eat all his experiments, so Peter starts distributing sweets to Mr. Wilson, Black Widow, and the Defenders in exchange for favors done around the city. This is how he figures out the catering and the reception furnishings and the clandestine transportation of both to the lake house in one fell swoop, so it’s a win-win.

Peter is being very efficient. He’s a good wedding planner. But, he’s starting to wonder if Miss Potts was right about wedding planning not being a two-month deal. At least, not a two-month deal when you’re also a high school sophomore and a very active vigilante.

May starts coming into his room to check if he’s asleep at night. Peter is always listening for her footsteps, so he can close his laptop and hide his face in the pillow before she sees him plotting out table locations and choreographing the wedding procession.

At school, MJ makes pointed comments about how Peter both looks and smells like a Hello Panda chocolate biscuit. She cancels their lunchtime debate, and Ned spends the extra time alternately trying to force-feed Peter his lunch and convince him to take a nap.

To be honest, Peter would really like a nap. But, he has a lot to think about and a lot to do. He can’t let himself rest. He’s so tense that his body literally won’t let him sleep anymore. 

He’s perpetually aware that he’s running against the clock. 

It’s a difficult month. Peter stops keeping track of how much he sleeps, because the number starts to frighten him. He misses some get-togethers with the Avengers and the Defenders. He even ghosts Deadpool a couple times. Once, during a team-up fight with Daredevil, Peter manages to trip on air and almost gets shish-kebabed by a ninja. Spider-Man’s patrol route becomes abnormally peaceful after that. 

All in all, it’s not good. Actually, Peter’s performance lately has been incredibly embarrassing. So, he probably should’ve predicted that he’d black out during Mr. Stark and Miss Potts’s cake sampling.

It’s figuratively the icing on the cake.

Peter shakes himself awake just as Mr. Stark and Miss Potts start making loud, panicked noises. Those noises may be words. Peter’s brain isn’t working well enough to tell right now.

However, it does register that he’s apparently face planted into the slices of matcha cake with matcha icing and banana cake with chocolate fudge, both of which are now looking sad and squished. 

“Oh, fuck,” Peter says. “Shit— I— I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Lemme— Can I borrow the kitchen for, like, an hour and just redo these slices— I swear I’ll bake ‘em as fast as possible, and— and I won’t waste your time more than I already have— Sorry, I don’t even know what happened—“

“Kid, Peter,” Mr. Stark says. “Just— Shut up about the cakes for a second.”

Peter shuts up about the cakes. 

This is such a clusterfuck. Peter promised Mr. Stark and Miss Potts that he’d take care of everything about their wedding, and now he’s nodding off in the middle of their cake sampling. Like, literally. He landed in the middle of the cakes. He’s so fucked up. 

Peter puts his head down. He can feel his whole face burning, his eyes especially.

It’s quiet for a long moment.

Then, a hand slowly reaches out and thumbs a patch of matcha icing off Peter’s cheek. “I’m going to go grab you a washcloth and some hot chocolate,” Miss Potts says quietly. “Don’t worry about the cakes right now, sweetie.”

Peter doesn’t move.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Miss Potts stand up, pause, and then move out of the lounge and towards the kitchen. Faintly, he hears her unlock her phone. 

In front of Peter, Mr. Stark’s hands fidget, and his legs cross and uncross. Then he sighs.

Mr. Stark says, “Peter, we need to talk.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Peter says.

“This is not a joke.”

“…Sorry.”

“No, don’t— Fuck, I’m doing this all wrong. Peter, just— Will you look at me?”

Peter looks up.

Mr. Stark is looking back. He doesn’t seem mad, but the line of his mouth is upset. There are worry wrinkles on his forehead. Peter put them there.

“Nah-ah, no, keep that head up.” Mr. Stark places his left hand under Peter’s chin. With his right, he grabs a paper napkin and starts brushing fudge and cake crumbs off Peter’s nose.

“Okay, so,” Mr. Stark says as he moves on to Peter’s right eyebrow. “Pepper and I— We’re worried about you, Pete. I’m worried about you—“

“Well, you shouldn’t be. Because I’m doing great. Just— really, really good, Mr. Stark. Totally fine.” Peter leans back and removes his face from Mr. Stark’s hands. His eyes are watering, so he tilts his head up and hopes Mr. Stark doesn’t notice.

Looking at the ceiling, Peter says, “So, I noticed you were really into the red velvet cake earlier; you know that’s basically just chocolate with red food color—“

At the same time, Mr. Stark goes, “Is it because of your—“

“No,” Peter says. “No, and can we just— not talk about it? This meeting isn’t about me; it’s about your wedding. Not my— stuff.”

“Well, considering that you’re our wedding planner, your stuff is probably important to the wedding, too.”

That’s a good point. But— “I think you should hire another wedding planner,” Peter says to the ceiling. “I’m— I’m just fucking everything up.”

“Peter—“ A rough thumb presses on Peter’s chin until he has to look Mr. Stark in the face. “You are not fucking everything up. You’re doing great— best wedding planner in New York. Soon, all the wedding planning companies will be coming after you, tearing you out of the grips of MIT—“

Peter feels tears start leaking out of his eyes.

“Oh, shit, fuck, what did I say? Was it the MIT thing? Pete, there’s no doubt that you’ll go to MIT; if they don’t snatch you up, I’ll buy the whole school— No, wait. Okay, just.” Mr. Stark hands Peter a bunch of napkins. Peter smushes them onto his entire leaky face. 

He feels so dumb. He wants to disintegrate and then disappear and never talk about this ever again.

Beyond the white of the napkins, Mr. Stark says, “Peter, you’ve been acting a little— off, even before this whole wedding thing started. And we’ve noticed. We’ve all noticed, but— Fuck, none of us are good enough with emotional health to talk to you. That’s your specialty, kid. Except when it comes to yourself apparently, so— Please.” Mr. Stark pries the paper napkins away from Peter’s face. He looks Peter in the eye.

“Peter,” he says, “will you please talk to me? Tell me how I can help you.”

Peter blinks at him.

Then he starts sobbing in earnest.

“I don’t know,” Peter gasps. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know why, but I feel like— like I’m running out of time. I’m scared— I don’t know. I just— I feel like I need to get things done now. Or it’ll be too late.” He wishes he could see Mr. Stark’s face, but his eyes are too busy simulating broken faucets. Stupid eyes.

“You shouldn’t worry about stuff like that, Pete,” Mr. Stark says. “You’re so young. You have a lot of time.”

“I know! I just— I don’t want to be like this either! I can’t control my feelings!” Peter tries to take a deep breath. His lungs jitter the air out of his chest. He coughs.

“I don’t like this— in-between state,” he continues. “I feel— just, like, if I saw you guys get married, I feel like I’d feel— better. Safer. That’s why I’ve been pushing so hard for the wedding to happen sooner. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for. I’d have married Pepper in October, if I wasn’t sure she’d murder me for going ahead without her permission again.”

Peter snorts wetly. He takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he says, with less snot and tears this time. “I shouldn’t be freaking out. It’s your wedding— You’re the one who deserves to freak out. I studied a wikiHow page on what to do if you started freaking out.”

“And I will freak out when it’s time,” Mr. Stark says. “Now it’s time for me to keep you from freaking out. Come ‘ere.”

He opens his arms up wide. Peter stares.

Mr. Stark wiggles his fingers. “Limited time offer, kid. You in?”

Peter hops the table of cake slices separating them and throws his arms around Mr. Stark’s back. He presses his face into Mr. Stark’s shoulder.

Mr. Stark hugs him back.

Peter can hear Mr. Stark’s heartbeat echoing through his carotid artery, can feel the rise and fall of his chest. Peter matches his breathing to his. Eventually, the tears stop coming.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t want to make you worry.” 

“I know.”

“I want to be happy. I really want to be happy.”

“I know.” Mr. Stark shifts his grip. “I know. It’s okay.”

Is it? Peter doesn’t ask. Right now, he just wants to sink into Mr. Stark’s hug and enjoy this comfort. He closes his eyes.

Then— 

“Oh my God, I didn’t prepare an indoor venue.”

“It’s okay, Pete.”

“What if it rains? What if it rains on your wedding day, and then everything goes to shit because I didn’t have a backup indoor venue— Shit, the tablecloths are white, Mr. Stark— Miss Potts’s dress is white and silk— If it wrinkles—“

Mr. Stark hugs Peter tighter. Maybe he’s trying to squish the air out of Peter’s lungs, so he can’t worry out loud anymore.

“It’s not gonna rain,” Mr. Stark says. “It won’t rain, Peter. You’re okay. It’ll be okay.”

——

Peter is very much not okay. 

He’s not okay because he forgot about the wedding photographer, which means he doesn’t have a wedding photographer, which means Mr. Stark and Miss Potts won’t have wedding photos, and then no future Potts-Stark babies will ever know what their parents looked like on their wedding day, and that sucks. 

Peter is not gonna let that happen. He refuses to let that fate befall the Potts-Stark babies.

So, Peter’s bent double, digging through the boxes that line the bottom of the closet when he feels something tap his tailbone.

He whips his head around. May’s standing over him, her eyebrows raised.

“Did you just touch my butt?” Peter says. “With your foot? Don’t kick my butt, May.”

“I won’t kick your butt if you don’t stick your butt out,” she says, then amends with “Actually, I might still do it. I’d get good street cred if I went around telling people I kicked Spider-Man’s butt.”

“Ugh,” Peter says, rolling his eyes. He stops sticking his butt out and squats down in front of the closet instead.

May squats down beside him. “What’re you looking for?” she asks.

Peter hesitates, then confesses, “I forgot to get a photographer for Mr. Stark and Miss Potts’s wedding, so— so I was looking for Uncle Ben’s camera.”

A pause.

May doesn’t say anything.

Peter sneaks a glance at her face. She’s thinking about something. Her eyes look far away. 

Then she says, “Well, if it’s not here, then I can’t imagine where it’d be. Now— look at what you did to my shoes! Have you been taking lessons from the raccoons you meet in those dumpsters? Step away from the closet— Let me look.”

Peter shuffles away from the closet. He sits, arms around his knees, as May pulls out box after box. There are books, papers, old toys, big coats. There’s a box that’s just filled with Ben’s old sweaters. Peter takes a dark blue one out and tugs it over his head. It doesn’t smell like Ben anymore. But it’s soft.

Finally, May says, “Aha!” and lifts up a bulky camera bag. She sits down, shaking out her legs, and places the bag on the floor between her and Peter. 

They just look at it for a couple seconds. Then May reaches out and slowly unzips the top. She flips it open.

Ben’s camera is sitting inside.

May pulls it out of the bag, turns it over, looks into the lens. “I remember seeing him drop this thing at least twice, but it still looks good as new. Amazing,” she says, shaking her head. Then she holds the camera out to Peter.

He takes it carefully, cradling it with both hands. It’s heavier than he thought it’d be.

“Is this okay?” Peter blurts out.

May looks at him. “Hm?” she says.

“Me— using his camera. At the wedding. Do you know if— I mean, would he think— I-I don’t know. I. Do you think he’d be okay?” Peter tries very hard not to squeeze the camera in his hands.

May is silent for a long moment.

“You know,” she says quietly. “Ben always complained about your parents getting married the way they did. It was a never-ending topic of conversation over the holidays. He’d wanted to photograph their wedding so badly. And after they took those photos at that studio— Whew! Ben almost blew his top. He always said that—“

“— the best photos are taken by photographers who love the people in them,” Peter recites.

“Exactly.” May smiles. “And that’s why I know your photos will be great. Ben would’ve loved to see you use that camera at the wedding. He loved you so much.”

“He loved you too.”

“I know, honey. Why do you think he took so many photos of us?”

Peter smiles at May, then looks down at the camera, turning it over in his hands, so she can’t see that he’s about to cry. May starts moving the boxes back into the closet.

Peter pops open one of the camera’s slots, and then he freezes.

“There’s still a memory card in here.”

May pauses.

Time stops.

Peter says, “...Do you wanna see what’s inside?”

Peter grabs his laptop and goes to May’s room. She’s waiting for him, sitting on the bed. After he settles down beside her, she wraps an arm around him, tucking his head under her chin like she did when he was still smaller than her. 

Peter braces the laptop against his thighs and opens it. He plugs in the memory card.

May takes his hand.

They stay there until the sun goes down.

——

It’s cloudy, the day of the wedding.

Peter has rented a huge white tent with the money he saved by nixing the idea of a professional wedding photographer. He makes Happy help him put it up over the round dining tables sitting on the lawn before running back into the kitchen.

Peter spent all day yesterday putting together Mr. Stark and Miss Potts’s wedding cake. It’s a three-tier monstrosity with two red velvet cakes sandwiching a vanilla one. The icing is pretty simple because Peter has very limited piping skills, but he spent an hour building fondant arc reactors, which he garnishes the top and sides of the cake with, so he still thinks it looks pretty okay. He hopes everyone will like it.

The danishes are resting on three big platters, and the butter cookies are cooling by the window. Peter shoves his hands into a pair of oven mitts that are designed to look like Iron Man gauntlets, and then he pulls the last tray of chocolate croissants out of the oven. He carefully picks one up and pulls it apart with his fingertips. It looks good. Very flaky. 

He shoves both halves into his mouth and immediately burns his tongue on the chocolate. It’s okay. Baking is supposed to be art, and art is suffering.

Fanning his tongue with one hand, Peter goes searching for Aunt May. She’s his pastry sous chef, and though he doesn’t let her do anything with the actual baking, he still wants her to help him plate.

Peter finds May in the master bedroom, helping Miss Potts with her hair and makeup. She already has the dress on.

“Oh, wow!” Peter says. “Miss Potts, you look— amazing. Wow.”

“Thank you, Peter,” Miss Potts smiles.

“And I guess I’m just chopped liver over here,” May says. She’s pinning Miss Potts’s hair into some kind of fancy knot at the top of her head.

“You always look amazing, and you know it,” Peter says.

“You’re darn right,” May answers. Peter shakes his head.

As he returns to his pastries, he hears May and Miss Potts laughing over something together. They sound like they’re having fun. It’s a little weird, because Peter didn’t know they were friends. He’s never even seen them talk to each other.

Peter quickly arranges the cookies and danishes onto the largest platters he can find at the lake house. They’re not all the same, but Peter likes them that way. The whole spread looks personal, not perfect.

Then, Peter goes outside to see if Colonel Rhodes has arrived yet. He knows the colonel is flying up from DC, so he got Mr. Stark to ask the colonel to make a stop in the city and pick up the flowers before coming upstate. Deadpool is in charge of retrieving the flowers from the flower shop and handing them off to Colonel Rhodes. Peter bribed him with eight Deadpool-themed cookies to not antagonize the colonel. He hopes nothing goes wrong.

But, before Peter can find Happy and check with his guest list, he bumps into someone else. Very literally. Mr. Wilson has to catch him by the shoulders to keep him from plowing them both into Black Widow.

“Mr. Wilson!” Peter says. “You’re finally here— And Miss Black Widow, too! Hi!” 

She nods. Mr. Wilson is looking at Peter like he’s never seen him before.

“…Spider-Man?” he says in a weird voice.

“Uh, yeah?” Peter says. He looks around. Mr. Wilson was supposed to bring the catering, but he doesn’t see it, so it must still be in whatever vehicle he and Black Widow took here. “You brought the food, right? Could you put it in the kitchen for me? There should be some space next to the croissants. Thanks, man!” Peter waves and rushes off.

As he heads towards the reception area, he faintly hears Mr. Wilson saying something like, “Him? Spider-Man? He looks like an actual fetus. What the fuck.” 

In response, Black Widow snorts. 

Peter finds Happy still struggling with the tent. 

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” Peter says, picking up a corner of the tent and walking up a nearby tree. “Is Colonel Rhodes here yet?” he calls back to the ground.

“Uh, not yet,” Happy says.

“Can you call him?” Peter ties the top of the tent to the tree. Then he flips down to the ground and grabs another part of the tent. “I really need those flower arrangements. Like, now.”

“I’ll check on him,” Happy says. “You do know that’s not how tents work, right?” he adds.

Peter shrugs, then goes walking up another tree. As long as it keeps the weather off of the reception area, he doesn’t really care. His time is better spent on other things.

Just as Peter finishes with the tent, Colonel Rhodes arrives with the flowers. He helps put a basket of ranunculuses and yellow narcissuses on each table as Peter carries the floral arch to the end of the dock. 

More guests start arriving. Hawkeye shows up with a whole gaggle of children, who try to suck Peter into their stone skipping competition and then, once Peter tells them he’s never skipped a stone before, try to adopt him as a stone skipping disciple.

Peter spends five minutes simultaneously listening to three different explanations of how to skip stones before he clandestinely hurls a rock into the lake, creating a huge splash, which distracts the kids long enough to let him run.

After Peter finishes arranging the flowers and brings Miss Potts her bouquet, Aunt May ushers him into the guest room, tells him to shower, and hands him his tuxedo. Mr. Stark bought this tux and tailored it to him using the spider suit measurements. It fits absurdly well. Peter doesn’t think he looks funny at all. He also manages to do up his tie without consulting YouTube this time. It’s only a little crooked.

Once Peter leaves the bathroom, gets sent back to the bathroom so May can tame his hair, and leaves the bathroom again, it’s getting close to ceremony time. Aunt May and Miss Potts’s friends are fluttering around Miss Potts, who looks calm and completely prepared, so Peter finally goes to check on Mr. Stark, whom Colonel Rhodes is helping get ready in the family room.

When Peter arrives, Colonel Rhodes is just leaving to review the procession choreography with Happy. Mr. Stark is fully dressed, standing in the middle of the room and fiddling with his cufflinks. He looks pale.

“Pete,” he says. “Now might be a good time for you to whip out that wikiHow knowledge.”

“Uh,” Peter blanks for half a second and then remembers. “Oh! Okay, okay, okay— Um, first let’s take some deep breaths. In, two, three, four; out, two, three, four...”

Peter breathes with Mr. Stark for two minutes and then takes him for a walk around the family room. Then he sits him down on the couch and feeds him a croissant. 

As Mr. Stark chews, Peter says, “So, why’re you freaking out?”

Mr. Stark swallows and says, “Well, Pete, I’m getting married to the love of my life.”

“Yes? Congrats?”

“And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m an expert in fucking things up. I’m a fuckup. I have a PhD in fucking up.”

“Ah,” Peter nods. “So, you’re afraid that once you get married, you’ll have a marriage that is fuck-up-able.”

“Yup.” Mr. Stark pops the “p.” He won’t look Peter in the eyes.

“Then,” Peter says, “I am glad to inform you that you, Mr. Stark, are not a fuckup. In fact, you are actually very good at fixing things, especially after you fuck them up. If you are a fuckup, Mr. Stark, then the rest of us are all colossal fuckups, because we’ve all relied on you at some point for fixing.”

Mr. Stark doesn’t say anything. But, he does meet Peter’s eyes.

Mr. Stark says, “I’m pretty sure you’ve fixed most of your fuckups on your own.”

“Patently untrue,” Peter shakes his head. “If that was true, then I wouldn’t have adopted an entire superhero squad of parental figures to help fix me.”

They sit quietly for a minute to let that sink in.

Then Mr. Stark raises his left eyebrow. “Parental figures, huh,” he says.

Peter shrugs. He can handle the truth.

Mr. Stark sighs. “Well, not the worst pep talk I’ve received,” he says, standing up. “Was that really from wikiHow?”

“No,” Peter rubs the back of his neck. “That was from brides.com.”

Mr. Stark snorts. Then he pulls Peter up and re-ties his tie, so that it lies straight.

And then it’s time.

Peter peeks out the window and sees all the guests settling into the chairs by the lake. Happy collects Mr. Stark, and they go wait for Miss Potts at the dock. Before Peter follows, he returns to the kitchen and climbs up the wall to retrieve the camera bag sitting on top of the refrigerator. 

Peter takes out Uncle Ben’s camera, uncapping the lens. He runs his fingers over the strap and then loops it around his neck.

Peter goes to see the wedding.

As he watches Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes emerge from the lake house, he thinks of the million other things he should be worrying about right now. The issue of how to move the cake to the reception area, the question of whether his croissants cooled down and crisped up right, the napkins he forgot to weigh down, and the wind. He fucking forgot about wind while planning an outdoor wedding.

But, for now, it’s okay. Peter watches Miss Potts walk slowly down the dock, her veil swaying gently in the breeze. He watches Mr. Stark’s eyes glisten, his jaw relaxed, mouth soft. When Miss Potts reaches him, he steps forward, and she clasps his hand. Mr. Stark whispers something, and then they both laugh. 

They’re beautiful. 

The sun starts to peek out from behind the clouds as Happy begins officiating the ceremony. The light scattering off the surface of the lake makes everything glow, Miss Potts most of all. Mr. Stark is looking at her as if she’s his guardian angel. She looks back like he’s her sun and stars. 

Peter raises Ben’s camera and takes a photo before his blurry vision can ruin his shot. Then he puts the camera down. He quickly wipes the corners of his eyes. 

He smiles. 

And everything is okay. 

For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the drawing board: a war, in two parts
> 
> Uh, so, the next couple parts of this series will probably take a while to come out. I'm doing back to school soon and then I'm gonna be pretty busy. 
> 
> If we're lucky, I'll have the next part out before school starts. A reasonable expectation would be for me to have it out by winter break, and the worst case scenario is that I get it done next summer, so. My apologies in advance.
> 
> But, I do think that this is the kindest place I could leave you. Imagine if I had the first part of the war written and published but not the second part, haha ;). 
> 
> Anyway, see you all on the other side of the war, and as always, thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> This work is completed and will be updated every day until fully published.


End file.
